The effectiveness of many computer systems is a function not only of the application software program which interacts with the user, but also a function of how well the computer system communicates with its human users. In terms of expert systems, effectiveness is a function not only of the knowledge applied to its task domain, but also the delivery of that knowledge to the end user. In spite of the recent strides that have been made in expert system theory and development, no one has produced a truly effective delivery vehicle for communicating with the users of these systems.
Most expert systems are either implemented on a main frame computer and accessed through a terminal, or they are ported to smaller personal computers. In either case the human-computer dialogue passes through a standard text screen or monitor in one direction, and through a standard "QWERTY" keyboard in the other direction. This keyboard/monitor interface is not an interface that optimizes system performance.
In a large number of situations, the standard keyboard/monitor mode of communication is inadequate or not suitable. For instance, in situations where the user's hands are busy, keyboard input is clearly difficult. When the user must visually concentrate on a task, it may be dangerous for the user to avert his eyes so as to look at a computer screen. In other situations, computer monitors are inadequate visual media for conveying information needed by the user. For instance, computer monitors generally cannot be used to display photographic images or moving video pictures, such as a movie sequence showing what a particular piece of equipment looks like, or how to disassemble that piece of equipment to effect a particular repair.
All of the communication modules required for a multimedia interface, such as voice recognition modules, text-to-speech voice production modules, random access video memories and video displays are commercially available. However, these multimedia communication modules have generally not been incorporated into expert systems because of the difficulty of adding multimedia features to an existing expert system, or to a system for building expert systems. That is, there was an implicit assumption that one would have to totally redesign and rebuild an expert system's knowledge base and control software in order to incorporate multimedia features.
In other word words, the primary problem has been the difficulty of integrating the multimedia modules with traditional expert systems. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a multimedia software interface that can be added to an expert system with minimal changes to the expert system.
Another potential problem with a multimedia expert system is that increasing the number of communication modules increases the number of ways that the system can fail. It is therefore another object of the present invention to provide a modular multimedia software interface where the failure of any input or output channel does not impact the functionality of the remaining parts of the expert system.
Still another potential problem with building a multimedia expert system is that the multimedia features would be needed or useful mostly in situations requiring that the expert system be portable. While powerful portable computers are now available, these computers generally do not include voice input, voice output, video output and a printer because it has been assumed that the inclusion of all of these features would make the resulting system nonportable.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a portable multimedia expert system delivery vehicle which weighs no more than 30 pounds, and is truly portable.